For eligible UK/EU students the full time studentship will cover fees and an annual Research Council stipend of approximately £14,777 (2018/2019 rate) for up to three years (+3 award) or four years (1+3 award).

For the 1+3 studentships we would require you to register initially on one of the following Masters programmes:

For the +3 studentships we would require you to register on a PhD programme in one of our disciplines with the aim of conducting research in an area that aligns with the work of the ESRC.

Core areas of Law research supervision
• Charity law
• Commercial law, Consumer law and Competition law
• Democracy & Human Rights: Comparative, EU, ECHR, Theories
• Environmental law and energy law
• Family law
• Feminist legal theory
• Finance and banking law
• Intellectual property, copyright & cultural heritage, and patent law
• International Criminal Law
• Modern legal history
• Migration and multiculturalism
• Public international law: humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict

2. Ambitious and Novel Research Proposal - important factors include novelty/fresh ideas, new concepts / techniques with the potential for significant scientific or societal and economic impact, innovative or even untested methods within the context of the particular project, involve multiple or unusual disciplinary combinations both within and beyond the social sciences, and accessing difficult/challenging data or generating new data in challenging settings.

Entry requirements

Academic entry requirements:

Applicants for a +3 award should have:

• Completed, or be due to complete an ESRC-accredited or an equivalent research Masters* with a significant element of research training. Applicants may be asked for further information to determine the relevance of the content covered.

* An equivalent research Masters is defined as including significant social sciences research design, quantitative and qualitative research methods elements. The transcript will need to show that a minimum of a third of the taught stage of your programme entailed research methods elements. For students who have undertaken a Masters outside the UK we will look for appropriate equivalencies. All awards are subject to ratification by the “Awards and Ratification Committee”, who shall have the authority to reconsider the equivalence of any Masters awards.

• Achieved a current average grade of their Masters (at the point of application) normally of at least Merit (60%) grade. Successful applicants must ultimately achieve BOTH an overall average of at least 60% across the taught units/modules AND at least 60% for the dissertation component as a condition of their funding.

Holders of Masters degrees that are not considered equivalent (as above), must apply for the 1+3 award.

In the case of a 1+3 application, continuation of funding from the ‘1’ stage to the ‘+3’ stage of the programme will be subject to achieving 60% across the taught units / modules AND 60% for the dissertation component. Students who fail to achieve these conditions may have their funding terminated and may be required to refund any money paid to them during the PhD portion of the programme.

Residency entry requirements: These studentships will be funded by the ESRC and are available to UK nationals and other EU nationals who have resided in the UK for three years prior to commencing the studentship. If you meet the criteria, funding will be provided for tuition fees and stipend. If you are a citizen of an EU member state and don’t meet the residency requirement you will be eligible for a fees-only award. For further guidance about eligibility please refer to the ESRC Postgraduate Funding Guide.

How to apply

To apply for SWDTP funding, you must do so by clicking on the ‘apply now’ button above. Only applications submitted via this link will be considered for funding. Please do not apply directly to your chosen programme of study at this stage. If successful, your application for funding will become your programme application so you will not need to apply again.

You will need to upload the following documents to the studentship application form. Please note our preferred format is PDF, each file named with your surname and the name of the document, eg. “Smith – CV.pdf”, “Smith – Cover Letter.pdf”, “Smith – Transcript.pdf”:

• A completed SWDTP Student Statement Form. This will include your research proposal of 1,000 words including the name(s) of the potential supervisors. For 1+3 students it is recognised that this will be an outline proposal to be further developed during the first year of the studentship.

• Verified transcript of your highest qualification to date or an interim transcript if you are still studying

• If you are not a national of a majority English-speaking country you will need to submit evidence of your proficiency in English (for further details, please see the University’s English language requirements)

Reference information
It is your responsibility to ensure that your supervisor and referee email their Supervisor Supporting Statement/references to pgrenquiries@exeter.ac.uk, as we will not make requests for references directly; you must arrange for them to be submitted by 29 January 2019. Please note that applications with missing documentation will not progress to shortlisting.

References should be submitted to us directly in the form of a letter. Referees must email their references to us from their institutional email accounts. We cannot accept references from personal/private email accounts, unless it is a scanned document on institutional headed paper and signed by the referee.

All application documents must be submitted in English. Certified translated copies of academic qualifications must also be provided.

Interviews for short listed applicants will take place from 4-8 March 2019. The interviews will be held at the Universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, or West England. The location of interviews for this pathway will be confirmed post shortlisting. All shortlisted candidates for this pathway will be interviewed at the same venue, irrespective of the institution to which they have applied.

Data Sharing
During the application process, the University may need to make certain disclosures of your personal data to third parties to be able to administer your application, carry out interviews and select candidates. These are not limited to, but may include disclosures to:

- The selection panel and/or management board or equivalent of the relevant programme, which is likely to include staff from one or more other HEIs;

- Administrative staff at one or more other HEIs participating in the relevant programme.

Such disclosures will always be kept to the minimum amount of personal data required for the specific purpose. Your sensitive personal data (relating to disability and race/ethnicity) will not be disclosed without your explicit consent.